ミルトンの恋愛詩とそれへの態度

概要

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Our main concern here in this article is to examine in detail the problem of Milton's love lyrics and consider how and why he finally shrank from his so-called juvenile "vana trophaea". Almost all of his English lyrics are far from being called love-poems, except Sonnet I (O Nightingale ...) and Sonnet IX (To a Virtuous Young Lady). The latter is dedicated to a young lady, but is not a love-poem in the ordinary sense of the word, while in the former the poet is "merely in love with love", as Cleanth Brooks aptly puts it. Thus we are obliged to turn our attention to his poems both Italian and Latin in order to find the poet's youthful ardour. Among his Italian sonnets, Sonnet III and Canzone are remarkable in their fresh and original flavour as not found even in Petrarch's sonnets; but most significant to us, so far as his amatory experience is concerned, are the Sonnets IV and VI. These two love-sonnets are very similar in their atmosphere to his Latin love poem-Elegia Septima. A rather close analysis of Elegia Septima leads us to the problem of its date and numbering. The unusual numbering as Septima instead of Ouinta involves us in the problem of the ten-line postscript annexed to the end of the Elegia Septima. This "epilogistick palinode", if we use Thomas Warton's phrase, suggests to us something of the poet's attitude towards his love poems in general, though it seems to be originally intended for the Elegia Septima only.
1958-11-30